Making Learning Fun

---Yanhua Wang

I am teaching Mandarin Chinese as a second language for  students  who  have never  known Mandarin Chinese before. Language includes listening, reading, writing and speaking. To acquire a language, students need many opportunities to practice and apply what they have learned in class. The  Mandarin Chinese language classroom often poses challenges in this area due to rote teaching methods, dull curricula, or limited opportunities to use the language outside of the classroom. Practicing a new language can also be intimidating, especially for students with a high affective filter or negative emotional factors that may interfere with language learning.

A great way to give students meaningful opportunities to apply their learning and lower their affective filter is to make learning fun! When teachers use activities that make learning engaging and fun, students are more willing to participate and take risks. Having fun while learning also helps students retain information better because the process is enjoyable and memorable. Besides with the development of modern technologies, it’s already a tendency for students to acquire computer skills.

Mobile learning is one of the ways I use to make learning fun and effective. As far as using mobile learning also has its disadvantages, which includes distraction of attention, wi-fi issues, charging factor and so on, I have to think about how to carry forward the advantages and reduce the disadvantages. Some guiding principles turn out to be very necessary.

1.Does every student have computers? Any charge and internet access in the classroom?

2.Are they familiar with the apps? If not, how long would it take to train them?

3.What’s the students’ prior knowledge of this digital content?

4. Is there specific preparation that needs to be done before the lesson?

5.By using this mobile device, does it aid the students in reaching the learning goal?

6.Does it cause more distractions than it’s worth?  

7.Could a different technology or teaching technique be used to reach the goals more effectively?

8.Do I have backup plans if something happens and the mobile learning doesn’t work?

9.How do I monitor what are the students doing?

10.How am I sure that mobile learning should only enhance student-centered learning and the reinforcement of the targeted learning outcomes?

When my answers to those questions are 95% positive, I then will use mobile learning strategy in my class. Here are the two apps I often use in the class.

The first app I use is for the students to learn Chinese Characters. As far as we don’t have environment here for students to read, to listen and to speak in Mandarin Chinese, I have to figure out a learning environment for the students.  In this case,  It’s extremely important that there is an app with Chinese Pinyin. While this app really helps me a lot in typing Pinyin. The app has flashcards and it’s very flexible to use because it has a lot of choices. I can either use Characters, Pinyin or both of them, besides I can choose to turn the audio on or off. so whenever I want to review the Characters, I will use the flashcards.                       

Another app I use is a game. Just a couple of decades ago, it’s unimaginable that human beings can use mobile learning in class.This app is a platform where one can create quizzes, discussions and surveys. It can also display via a TV or projector, and participants enter the game pin to play. I use it as a formative assessment.  At the same time I am able to collect valuable data about where the students’ abilities are. One of the best features of the app is that it collates the data for me in a downloadable spreadsheet, where I can see if students are struggling in their weakpoints.

Generally, I think mobile learning is very useful tools to make class fun. Students are also making progress step by step. I believe that if we can make best use of the advantages and bypass the disadvantages of mobile learning, we can have more choices of teaching and learning.

Reference:

1.Teacher's Corner: Making Learning Fun. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2016, from https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/teachers-corner-making-learning-fun